Goodbye, Jane
by MyLadyScribbler
Summary: Ducky reflects on the one "guest" he was never able to identify, and wonders who she had been in life. Set during the events of 2x04, "Lt. Jane Doe."


Her name could have been Alison, Ducky thought as he carried the small brass box into the autopsy suite. Or Jennifer, perhaps.

Melissa, Tracy, Susan, Lisa or Ashley.

Any number of names.

But there was only one name that Ducky could call her with any degree of certainty.

Jane Doe.

He sat down at his desk and felt a familiar twinge of sadness as he ran his fingers over the plate on the box's lid. October 12, 1994, it said.

A death date. That was all they knew of her, besides what was in the crime scene and autopsy reports, both now buried in some distant file.

Ten years later, and everything about this woman's past was a total mystery.

She could have had a happy childhood, with a loving family and a circle of best friends.

Or her childhood could have been a living hell.

Ducky didn't know.

During the autopsy, he hadn't found any physical signs of prior abuse or distress: no healing bruises or old fractures, no drug needle marks or scars from cutting – aside from the ghastly trident that the killer had carved into her neck. No signs that she'd ever been sexually abused before her killer assaulted her.

The search of the naval personnel database had turned up nothing. Despite the uniform she had been wearing when she was found, she wasn't a member of the Navy.

So a police sketch of the woman, her fingerprints and her DNA profile, such as it was with the technology of the time, were entered into missing persons databases.

Ducky waited. And waited.

"Isn't anyone looking for her?" he'd demanded more than once. "Doesn't anyone care where she's gone or why she hasn't come home?"

No grieving parents or siblings, no best friend or trusted co-worker, ever came forward.

Ducky had the body cremated, per regulations. You could only keep it in the cooler for so long.

He'd kept the ashes, partly because there was no one else to take them. But he felt that he was doing it to ask the woman's forgiveness – for not being able to give her a name or find her killer.

 _I failed you, my dear._

That sense of failure multiplied when a few days ago, ten years to the day Jane Doe's body was found, a second woman was found on a Norfolk naval base. She had been assaulted and killed in exactly the same manner and dressed in a naval uniform. Right down to the trident.

The cruelty and savagery of the two murders, and the killer's contempt both for his victims and for women in general – it made Ducky's blood boil just thinking about it.

The second victim had seemed to look at him from where she lay in the cooler. "Please…tell my family what's happened," she seemed to plead.

 _I will,_ Ducky had thought. _I'm not letting that animal get away a second time._

 **xNCISx**

A week or so later, Ducky was back at his desk with Jane Doe's ashes.

They had names, at long last.

Janice Santos was the name of the second victim. She'd led a fascinating life, from what Ducky had heard from the team, and she apparently played the drums very well.

Her family had just come by to have her body released to a funeral home.

Harlan Wilson was the disgraced former sailor connected both to her death and to Jane Doe's, in a way that astonished the entire team. Wilson had killed Jane Doe himself, but Janice Santos, on the other hand…

Petty Officer Cynthia Cluxton would make an intriguing case study for a psychologist, Ducky thought. Maybe he should look into studying for that advanced degree in forensic psychology. But that was a matter for another time.

He held the box of ashes for a long moment, trying to decide what to do now.

Finally, he picked up the phone, dialed the number for St. Cecelia's Cemetery just outside Alexandria and asked to speak to the cemetery's director.

"What can I do for you, Dr. Mallard?"

"Mr. Fraser, I have a young lady who was never identified, and whose next of kin never came for her," Ducky said. "Now that we've finally been able to answer some of the questions surrounding her death, I would like to give her ashes a proper interment."

"Certainly, Dr. Mallard. We have a space in the central mausoleum just for that purpose."

They set a time. Fraser would meet Ducky at the tomb to receive Jane Doe's ashes at two o'clock.

Ducky arrived a few minutes early and sat on a bench near the tomb. It had rained earlier in the morning, and the skies were gray and overcast, but Ducky's mood was lighter than it had been.

"It's not the home you knew in this life, but I think you will find peace here," Ducky said to Jane Doe's ashes. "And in some way, so shall I."

Fraser appeared in the doorway to the tomb, hands folded.

Ducky walked over and carefully handed the ashes to him. As Fraser took the ashes into the tomb, Ducky felt a heavy weight lift off his shoulders.

 _Farewell, my dear._

And as he started the walk back down the path to the cemetery gates, he was almost certain that he heard a female voice whisper, "Thank you, Ducky."


End file.
